Volume 6| Number 6 I 
New Serlesi Number 84 I 
SATURDAY, 
MAY 8, 1875. 
Established A. D. ISTIy 
$4«aYear, 10 ctsaCooy 
THE LCTHER BADGE. 
LAXD, XIAIXE. 
BY NATHAN C. BROWN. • 
[Read before the Nuttall Ornithological Club, April 24, 1875.] 
On ilarch 15, while collecting in the vicinity of this 
city, I shot a SnO'V Bunting, with so curious a malfor- 
mation of bill that it seems worthy of record. The un<- 
der mandible is of the usual size and shape, but the up- 
per extends 43-100 of an inch beyond the tip of the un- 
der, its entire length being 83-100. The elongation is 
perfectly straight, and of nearly uniform width to the 
end, about 9-100 of an inch. The bird was a male, and 
though in poor plumage, had fared well in spite of its 
awkward bill, for it was very fat, and the digestive or- 
gans were filled with food. 
Though all my expeditions in search of Passerculu$ 
princeps, this spring, have been unrewarded by the cap- 
ture of a specimen, I am at last able to inform you of 
its oecurrence upon our coast. My friend, Mr. James 
Willey, obtained a male on the shore of Cape Elizabeth, 
the 20th of March. Never having met with the bird 
before, Mr. Willey was uncertain of its identity, and 
called my attention to it. I recognized it, at once as P. 
princept, and as my friend very kindly parted with it, 
at my request, it is now in my possession. The yellow 
of the superciliary streak and of the elbow of the wing 
is rather brighter than in the Massachusetts specimens 
that I have examined. You will also probably be in- 
terested to know that a line Ilerodias egretta was shot 
on Scarboro Marsh, a few days ago. So far as I know, 
this is the first specimen taken east of Massachusetts. 
[Several specimens of JI. egretta have been taken east 
of Massachusetts, but it is a curious fact that so many 
of our southern birds should have wandeied so far north 
from their usual habitat as has been the case during the 
past severe winter and the present backward spring.] 
Ruthven Deane, Secretary. 
WESTERN EXPLORATIO.XS— DISCOVERY OF 
AX AXCIEXT PIEBEO AXD Bl RVIXG 
GROIXD. 
BY DR. n. C. YARROW, V. S. A. 
Within the last few years the attention of scientific 
men has been greatly attracted to the study of 
the Ethnology and Archteology of our country, and 
their researches in this regard have been greatly aided 
by the different exploring expeditions sent out under 
Government auspiees, whose discoveries have thrown 
much light upon the manners, customs and habits of 
different races of people formerly occupying this con- 
tinent, particularly in the Western States and Ter- 
tories. 
We are now able, thanks to the elaborate papers of 
Gens. Simpson and Whipple, Messrs. Squire, Davis, 
Latham, Brinter and others, to form a very fair idea of 
these almost pre-historic peoples, their manner of liv- 
ing, habitations, customs, weapons, and implements of 
different kinds. 
As a slight contribution to this most interesting sub- 
ject, I have penned the following description of a dis- 
covery made last summer in New Mexieo of an ancient 
Pueblo, or an Indian town, with a grave yard near by, 
from which we had the good fortune to secure several 
skeletons in an admirable state of preservation. This 
town was in the valley of the Rio Chama, about three 
miles east of Abiquin, and had been built on the top of 
a mesa or table-land rising, probably 100 or 150 feet 
above the level of the river This mesa lies at the foot 
of the Jemez range of mountains, and has the appear- 
ance of a high foot hill from the valley; seen from 
above it is simply a promontory of land in the shape of 
a trapezoid or frustrum of a cone. At its base in each 
side were the only means of approach, two narrow 
steep canons worn away by the streams of water from 
the mountains above. In ease of war th«se approaches 
could have been defended against thousands by a dozen 
resolute men with no better weapons than roeks and 
stones. The front of the mesa is a sheer precipice, al- 
lowing of no ingress to the town in that direction, and 
it would af/pear that the builders of it ehose this spot 
with a considerable degree of sagacity and with a view 
to a good defensive position, although we were unable 
to determine where, in case of a protracted siege, the 
inhabitants could have obtained water. A glance at the 
aeeompanying woodcut will, perhaps, enable the reader 
to better understand exactly the position of the mesa, 
village and surroundings. The Rio Chama flows 
through the valley at the foot of the mesa, as repre- 
sented in the eut, the road a. a. running along side of 
it. The two canons or approaches to the town are 
marked b b, and c c are two.arroyas or ditehes, in the 
sides of which the graves were found. These ditches 
have been also found in a similar manner to the canons, 
but subsequent to the oceupation of the village. It will 
be seen from the engraving that the town was built in 
the shape of a double L, having an open area or court- 
yard on both sides, and with bastions or towers at the 
corners, one defending the western canon approach, 
and the other the only entrance to the town. The 
front wall marked e e was 40 feet in length; //, 50 feet; 
g, 30 feet; h, 40 feet; t, 80 feet,,; 50 feet, the bastions 
being 10 feet in diameter; the Estufa or Couneil 
Chamber 20 feet. These walls had been built double 
as is represented, and the dwellings wi-re between, 
divided up into spaces of about ten feet square. Upon 
the supposition that each of the spaces were occupied by 
one family consisting of say five individuals, and that 
the structure was two stories in height, we may imagine 
the population of this town to have been in the neigh- 
borhood of 250. If the houses consisted of nine stories 
like the Pueblo villages of the present day, the pop- 
ulation was doubtless much greater. 
The stone eomposing the walls are black basaltic lava, 
and have probably been brought from a considerable 
distance, as w'e were unable to discover any large de- 
posit of this material in the vieinity. At the present time 
these walls are but 18 inches in height, and are grad- 
ually crumbling down, but enough debris is scattered 
about to show that an enormous quantity of the stone 
was used in the construction. Interspersed with the stones 
are found great quantities of broken pottery, exhib- 
iting the samepeeuliaritiesof markings and colorations 
as the fragments found in other ancient dwelling places 
in this part of New Mexico, for examples of which the 
reader is referred to the report of Lieut. .las. H. Simp- 
son, of the Corps of Topographical Engineers, entitled 
“Journal of a Military Reconnaissanee from Santa Fe, 
New Mexico, to the Navajo country,” and published 
in’ 1852, b}^ Lippincott, Granbo & Co., in Philadelphia. 
These illustrations are faithful representations of just 
such specimens of pottery as we have now in our collec- 
tion from this village. In addition to the fragments of 
pottery, we found chips of black obsidian, of red 
porphyry, and cornelian white and red, but not a bead, 
an arrow, a lance head, nor an axe head, of stone or 
metal rewarded our long and eager search, which may, 
perhaps, be accounted for from the fact that the present 
Pueblo Indians have a great degree of regard and ven- 
eration for ancient stone implements of all kinds. 
The “Estufa” or Council Chamber was carefully ex- 
amin d, and appeared to have been similar in its char- 
acter to the ones at present used in modern Pueblos. 
These chambers are formed by digging in the ground 
a circular pit about 10 or 20 feet in depth; a wall, in 
some eases, of two or three feet in height is built around 
the rim of the hole, and in this branches of trees or 
beams of wood are laid, which is covered with brush 
and earth is then paeked firmly on top. At the Pueblo 
of Taos eaeh head man has an Estufa of his own, but 
in this and other villages only one appears to have been 
in use. 
After carefully examining the remains of the village, 
we set out in search of the graves, having been informed 
by Padre Salazar, the village priest of Abiquin, that we 
would probably find some skeletons near the walls of 
the town, he having received his information from 
some sheep herders who had seen bones in the arroyas 
while wandering over the mesa. We could hardly 
credit the statement, as it is well known that Indians 
as a rule are not in the habit of burying their dead in 
the immediate vicinity of their villages, unless they 
have a church with cemetery attached. However, we 
found in this case that bodies had been buried within 
30 feet of the walls of the town. The arroyas c c, as al- 
ready stated, had been washed out by water, and the 
falling away of the earth disclosed the remains The 
first skeleton found was in the right hand or eastern 
arroya, some six or eight feet below the level of the 
mesa, and had been placed in the grave face dawn- 
ward, the head, singularly enough, pointing to the 
south This is very interesting and curious, and I am 
not aware that these two facts have ever been before 
noticed in regard to American aborigines. As the 
body lay, we had a fine section of the strata of earth 
above it. Two feet above the skeleton we noticed two 
smooth black “ ollas” or vases, which, when dug out, 
were found to contain charcoal, parched corn, and the 
bones of small mammals and fowls, which had doubt- 
less been placed therein at the funeral feast; and the 
remaining earth to the surface contained nothing but 
pieces of charcoal. Not a vestige of clothing, no or- 
naments, implements or weapons were found near the 
corpse, and apparently no receptacle had been em- 
ployed to contain it. By carefully digging away the 
